High Taxes Discourage Consumption, Boost Smuggling

I'm looking at the photo accompanying Patrick Fleenor's May 7 op-ed, "Cigarette Taxes Are Fueling Organized Crime," and thinking, "Look at all that revenue going up in smoke."

Maybe the government should go retail and sell what it has confiscated -- after all, cigarettes are legal. There's no production cost, so it's all profit. The overhead costs for Uncle Sam's Smoke Shoppe would be more than justified by the increase in jobs. (The government is good at that.) Additional government health expenses due...